Hurry Sundown

This is the most embarrassing excuse for a serious picture I have ever seen.

I'm sure "Hurry Sundown" tested the pre-ratings MPAA for it's supposedly frank depiction of sexual themes. It probably required television editing as ABC ran this film several times in the early '70s.

You could cut the sexual tension with a knife if it wasn't so funny. Jane Fonda seductively playing the sax with Michael Caine was probably suggestive enough to cause the censors to get nervous. But then we have Faye Dunaway's cartoonish overacting in that bedroom scene with John Phillip Law. At least poor white trash have healthy sex lives.

The only thing criminal about this movie is that it attempted to tackle the thorny subject of race relations in the 1940s in such a cheap, heavy handed manner.

I first knew about this film when I read about it in the book, "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time" and I also found out about its location shooting in my current hometown of Baton Rouge, La., either there or elsewhere. I also read that the locals there treated the cast and crew hostilely which makes me glad that my family didn't even move there until 1975 when I was about 7 and being just a kid, I usually got away with getting occasionally angry whenever other children my age called me "Chinese" (I'm actually of Filipino descent). About the movie itself, well, the first 30 minutes seemed all right dramatically-wise with the setting up of characters before Beah Richards' over-the-top heart attack turned the picture into close of an overheated soap opera worthy of "Dallas"-of which George Kennedy, who's a hoot as the sheriff with a penchant for liking the "coloreds", would join the cast of in the late '80s-especially whenever that mentally-challenged kid of Michael Caine and Jane Fonda was constantly crying. Caine had just become a star with Alfie while Ms. Fonda would become a sex symbol with Barbarella though maybe this film also contributed to her status when she played hubby Caine's sax. Another notable appearance was that of Faye Dunaway in an early role just before she became a star in Bonnie and Clyde. Burgess Meredith chews plenty of scenery as a bigoted judge especially when sharing some of that with Jim Backus as one of the attorneys in a court scene. By the way, Backus wasn't the only Sherwood Schwartz series regular-from "Gilligan's Island"-in that sequence as future star of "The Brady Bunch"-Robert Reed-would be his opposite here. And then there's Diahann Carroll who would later star in her own groundbreaking series the following year called "Julia". Okay, with that out of the way, I'll just say that I thought the drama was entertaining but I also knew that it's not for all tastes and leave it at that. So on that note, I recommend Hurry Sundown. P.S. On Wikipedia, I just found out that Preminger picked BR on the recommendation of production designer Gene Callahan who lived and eventually died there.

This mint julep melodrama is a hooty delight. I suppose that at the time it was meant to shine a light on racial injustice in the south but it just comes off as an over-baked soap opera. Preminger was the wrong director for such a piece of honeyed excess, this is the type of thing at which Douglas Sirk excelled and could make trenchant observations while still entertaining the masses. Still worth watching for the cast alone. Jane Fonda gives the most enjoyable performance even if her honeychile accent comes and goes. And even as a sharecropper's wife with four kids Faye Dunaway manages to look ravishing. If you like overdone melodramas with lots of stars and little sense than this is for you, if not stay away!

I won't argue with someone who says, "I hated this film". Clearly many people (including film critics) did. But, I disagree with those who say the acting performances were bad-----they were spot on. I disagree with those who say the "trashy" racist characters were over-the-top caricatures-----you haven't met some of my relatives. And, I disagree with those who say that real people never act like these characters do-----pick up a newspaper sometime, either 1950 or 2011. Yes, parts of the movie made me squirm and want to look away-----because the scenes were TOO real and heartbreaking. I, for one, do NOT want racism, past or present, swept under the rug. Show its ugliness. Make people squirm. Hollywood would never make "Hurry Sundown" today, because it is "politically incorrect". The film says our parents, children, neighbors, law enforcement officers, and politicians could be capable of violent racism. Really! No! Surely only in the movies!

Lousy Otto Preminger film from K. B. Gilden's bestseller (adapted by Thomas C. Ryan and, of all people, Horton Foote!) concerns a greedy white land-owner in Georgia planning to dupe his wife's black guardian and her sharecropper husband out of their real estate, setting off a race war. Everyone is here, from Faye Dunaway to Brady dad Robert Reed, but the script is such a mess--and Preminger is so ham-handed--that nobody survives "Sundown" without looking foolish. Jane Fonda flirts with husband Michael Caine using his saxophone (!) while Beah Richards pantomimes a heart attack as if this were a stage-play. Preminger goes out of his way to make the rich whites despicable and the black folk saintly and reasonable--so much so that the picture might have started its own race war in 1967 (probably the exact type of controversy the director wanted). It certainly gave work to many underemployed, sensational actors like Madeleine Sherwood, Diahann Carroll, Rex Ingram and Jim Backus, but results are laughable. *1/2 from ****